Rejuvenated Chris Masten steps up for West Coast Eagles

[Ulquiorra]

NONE of Jeremy McGovern’s teammates enjoyed his recent after-the-siren winner against Port Adelaide quite as much as Chris Masten — who found the view was much better from out on the ground.

While McGovern’s set shot was a case of déjà vu for most, Masten was watching at home on TV like most West Coast fans when Luke Shuey did the same thing in last year’s elimination final at Adelaide Oval.

“That hurt last year to watch that, so then being able to play in that one was awesome,” Masten said.

In and out of the side throughout the second half of last season, Masten wasn’t seen again after being discarded in round 20.

It meant he missed the finals against the Power and Greater Western Sydney and he looked to have been tossed on the scrapheap by coach Adam Simpson earlier this year when he didn’t even make the extended teams for the club’s two JLT Series fixtures.

“I wasn’t under any illusions. I was thinking I’m going to have to bide my time and do what I have to do in the WAFL,” Masten said.

Just a week before West Coast’s much-hyped season opener against Sydney at Optus Stadium, the first AFL match to be played at the new venue, everything changed.

Simpson came to Masten with a specific job description that he needed carried out, identifying him as the perfect man for the job.

Masten didn’t have to think long before understanding that this was the opportunity he needed to reboot his career.

“I don’t know how long he had been planning stuff in his head,” Masten said.

“Simmo said: ‘We need this done and no one else can really do it. Do you want to do it?’ (I was) like, ‘Bloody oath. I’ll do anything you want to get a game’.”

Frozen out during the pre-season, just days after the conversation Masten was named in the 22 for the blockbuster with the Swans and hasn’t looked back since. The 29-year-old has played every game this season, barring the round 11 home win over St Kilda which he missed with a low-grade hamstring strain he bravely carried through the match against Hawthorn the previous week.

Masten is understandably guarded about the specifics of his role, which he says has evolved multiple times throughout the season.

But the Eagles operate their wing positions differently to most teams and he and fellow wingman Andrew Gaff were given different jobs. While Gaff was often deployed as a sweeper around the back of stoppages where he could pick up disposals at will, Masten — the club’s best 2km time-trial runner — was earmarked for a more sacrificial and structured “corridor winger” role.

It involves running his guts out for four quarters up and down the middle of the ground, taking advantage of both his ability to repeat sprint and punch out 15km a game.

“My areas that I run to doesn’t mean that I get the footy, but it might mean that I make some space for someone else to get the footy,” he said.

“I think I’ve sort of owned it and taken it in my own direction as well. So that’s what I’m most pleased about, being able to play again just using my strengths.

“Not having to worry about getting kicks or stuffing up. Just focusing on what I do well and bringing that on game day and then that helping the team. Which I think it has.”

Going on pure numbers, the East Fremantle product’s modest average of 20 touches per game is his lowest return since 2011.

But Masten believes he has never been more valuable for the team.

“It’s chalk and cheese. I think I’ve had some good years before. Like ’15 I had a good year. But this is more important I think for the team,” he said.

And if you could measure his level of fulfilment, it’s never been higher.

“It’s the best fun I’ve had playing footy in my career,” Masten said.

“It’s just a different mindset. Everything in my head is just so much clearer and more calm and not as noisy as it once was.”

VERSATILITY
Masten had been a regular during Simpson’s first three years at the Eagles. But in 2017, as Simpson sought more versatility, he began to turn his attention to what the veteran midfielder couldn’t do rather than what he could.

“Last year especially, it was like, ‘OK you can’t just play wing’. The thought process was you have to be able to play inside a little bit, or at half-forward a little bit. You have to be able to do a little bit of everything,” he said.

The 194-gamer was asked to put on weight so he could be a more effective contested ball winner, however, while he did a bit of everything he wasn’t doing anything particularly well.

This year the Eagles have gone back to his strengths as he lost weight and focused on his running.

It mirrors what has happened elsewhere at West Coast in 2018, with the wheel turning back to a focus on specialists playing in their best positions.

The Eagles have loaded up with specialist small forwards, taking the place of midfielders who last season used to rotate through the forward line. In turn, there are fewer midfielders in the side but the best onballers now spend more of their time on the ball.

Masten, who has an eight-month-old son Tex with wife Emmi, said Simpson also factored in the different size of Optus Stadium and a need for different running patterns as he formulated the game plan for this season.

“I think that’s where Simmo’s so clever as a coach. He’s not just done it for me. It’s all over,” he said.

“He’s thought we have to change a little bit in how we’re playing. We’ve got some different personnel now, let’s have a bit more positive mindset about it and let’s just back our players in at what they do well, I think.”

GAFF’S GAFFE
Masten has lost his fellow wingman Gaff, in the wake of his season-ending eight-week suspension for punching Andrew Brayshaw in the round 20 western derby. He struggles to comprehend how his normally placid teammate found himself at the centre of one of WA footy’s biggest scandals.

“Even just to be able to do that. If you’ve ever seen him box ... he would hands-down be the worst I’ve ever seen in my 11 years at this footy club,” Masten said.

“He’s got no idea. He’s quite uncoordinated. And his mentality as well, he’s not like that whatsoever.

“So that’s what the game does though. Things just happen that you can’t really explain. You’re not really thinking, you’re just reacting I suppose.

“You realise how many eyes are really on you and in such a split-second decision for Gaffy he’s going to probably reap that for the rest of his career.”

Masten was at the centre of his own derby furore in 2015, when he was part of an ugly tribunal showdown between the clubs and banned for two matches for biting Fremantle’s Nick Suban on the arm.

While the public storm was bigger for Gaff, Masten said his own experience was that time healed.

“That scrutiny that comes with the West Australian media and then football fans as a whole is pretty hectic. But I think this is on a whole other level,” he said.

“At the moment, Gaffy’s probably feeling like no one will ever remember anything else. But a week’s a long time in footy, let alone one or two years. So he’ll be fine.

“But right now you feel for him and you feel for Andy Brayshaw as well, not being able to play footy and drinking through a straw. It doesn’t sound too fun to me. There’s no winners in this situation.”

Masten said he didn’t know what effect the incident and resulting suspension would have on restricted free agent Gaff’s future.

“Gaffy’s got to do what he’s got to do and we’ll back him in either way. Obviously we really desperately want him to stay,” he said. “I don’t know if it will have any impact on his decision, but some people might say that it does.”

If Gaff leaves to join a Victorian club at season’s end he will never have to play in another western derby.

Masten said, for him, returning to the derby cauldron had been cathartic.

“For me anyway — I can only speak for how I felt — I wanted to play another one just to get that last sour taste out of my mouth,” he said.

“Get on with it and play the next derby. So that’s not going to be my last derby sort of thing. That was just my mentality.

“You always look for a reason to play in any game and if you need any extra motivation it’s not hard to find when you’ve done something silly in a previous game.

“That was how I felt. I don’t know how Gaffy’s going to take it. We’ll just have to wait and see.”